


New Foundations

by mage_cat



Series: Mending Bridges [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, Discussion of Canon-Typical Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:28:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23403754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mage_cat/pseuds/mage_cat
Summary: Catra has spent the time since Adora left the Horde burning bridges to light her way. Now she and Glimmer are stuck on Horde Prime's ship in need of a way out. Maybe together they can build new bridges to save, not only themselves, but all of Etheria, and whoever else the Horde threatens.
Relationships: Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Series: Mending Bridges [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683547
Comments: 25
Kudos: 137





	1. Truth and Promises

Catra woke slowly. The knowledge that the worst had already happened had let her fall asleep quickly, and sheer exhaustion had finally made that sleep dreamless. With no nightmares jolting her awake for the first time in weeks, her body was reluctant to let go of that state.

When she finally did open her eyes, she quickly regretted it, being met with a flare of pink light. The fact that it quickly passed didn’t make it more pleasant. Even half-awake, it was obvious that the source had been her new roommate.

The space made Catra think of two Force Captain quarters merged together and painted in pale, rather than dark, gray. Two beds, two chairs, a table, some storage built into the walls, and not much in the way of extra space. It was plenty to her, probably a serious downgrade to Glimmer.

The Queen of Bright Moon glared at her from the opposite bunk, arms folded across her chest. 

Catra returned the glare. “I’m a good fighter, but there’s no need to attack me the second I wake up.”

“What’s my name?”

“What? Did Horde Prime do some sort of memory wipe on you? It’s Spar… Spar…” Something was stopping the word in her throat, forcing it into a different shape. “Glimmer.”

“I can’t teleport or muster up a glitter bomb, but my truth spells still work. What do you know about the Heart of Etheria?”

Catra grimaced as she sat up and began to finger comb the snarls out of her hair. “That it exists and you tried to set it off.”

“Why did you tell Horde Prime that he would need your help to use it?”

“Because I realized that I wasn’t actually interested in dying just then. I’m a good liar when I’m not being forced otherwise and a quick enough study that I might be able to fool him long enough to at least get us out of here. If I can’t, then I’m no worse off than before.”

“You said ‘us’. Why would you want to help me?”

“I doubt I can do it alone, I have no allies, and out of my available enemies, you’re the only one who might want out of here as badly as I do.” She huffed out a breath, her fingers still working through her hair. “I hope Prime doesn’t have anything listening to this.”

“What makes you think I want your help?”

Catra rolled her eyes. “I doubt you can do it alone, you have no allies--not that know where you are anyway--and out of your available enemies, I’m the only one who might want out of here as badly as you do.”

Glimmer cocked her head as she considered these facts. “Why don’t you want to work for Horde Prime? I thought that’s what this was all working towards.”

“I got tired of taking orders a long time ago. As for what I was working towards…” Her hands stilled as she pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “I didn’t realize it wouldn’t get me the results I wanted until it seemed too late to turn back.”

“Just what results did you think you would get from conquering Etheria?”

She took a deep breath, searching for the words for what she had never said out loud. “I thought I would finally be respected, and that no one would be able to hurt me again.” With her tail curled tight around her feet and her ears drooping, she suddenly seemed fragile.

Glimmer’s arms uncrossed, and her voice softened. “Who hurt you before?”

Catra barked out a mirthless laugh. “There’s a list, but Shadow Weaver is firmly at the top of it.”

“She raised you the way she raised Adora. Right?”

“No,” Catra snapped, her body tensing. “She raised me at the same time she raised Adora. She didn’t raise us the same way at all. Adora was her prized pupil, the shining future of the Horde. I was a nuisance and a disappointment who had to be kept under control so I wouldn’t drag Adora down with me. Those aren’t my impressions. Those are her words. You want to know why I’m not fighting this spell? Because Shadow Weaver taught me how much fighting magic can hurt. Her favorite punishment for me was something that looked like an immobility field. It doesn’t make your muscles lock up or anything. It wraps you in a feeling like a million needles pressing against every inch of your skin, and if you move, they jab into you. As I got older and better at keeping still, she added an electrical charge to it and would up the voltage until I twitched.” The words poured out, the poison that always swirled through her mind released into the air.

Glimmer’s face went slack as the description stirred my memory. It was one thing to use that spell on a prisoner of war but… “She did that a lot?”

“Never went more than a month without her finding a reason,” Catra said as she stood to grab her headpiece from the shelf set into the wall by her bed. She fitted it into place. “That felt like mercy compared to the stretches when she would find a reason every day.”

“Did... did Adora know about that?”

“She didn’t know about every time, I never told her just how bad the pain is, but she knows it happened. And that didn’t clue her in to the fact that the Horde is evil. No, it took a couple of hours with a handful of strangers for her to realize that.” She slumped against the wall. “So much for me being important to her.”

“You were the only person from the Horde she tried to get to leave with her.”

“I almost did.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Catra closed her eyes briefly, summoning the memory. “I was just starting to consider it when Shadow Weaver hauled me in front of Hordak to face punishment for failing to bring Adora back. I was braced for the worst. And then he gave me the Force Captain promotion Shadow Weaver had planned to give Adora and told her off for ignoring my potential. Adora had been gone less than a day and all of a sudden, for the first time, someone--someone with power--was calling me her equal. Not her sidekick or the beast weighing her down. Her equal. I… I can’t find the words to describe how that felt. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. I thought that if the only way to be Adora’s equal was to be her rival, I would do that.”

“I don’t think Adora really understands the idea of someone being her equal.”

Catra smiled, a ghost of the cockiness Glimmer was used to seeing on her face. “Learned that the hard way Your Majesty?”

“Me being willing to work with you doesn’t make us friends,” Glimmer said, her expression turning hard again.

“That’s for the best. I’m a bad friend.”

“You’re the reason my mother is gone.”

“It’s not like she’s dead,” Catra said with a shrug.

Glimmer nearly launched herself from the bed. She held herself back enough that she ended up merely standing in front of Catra rather than violently shaking her. “How can you say that?”

“I learned a lot in the portal. I started it. My mind shaped it. That perfect world never fooled me. I knew what was going on the whole time. When it swallowed me, I clawed my way out. While I was doing that, I saw things, learned things. Holding the portal closed is not a one time sacrifice. It is a continuous act. Your mother is somewhere. You can reach it with the right tech. Get Entrapta to pick my brain, and I’m sure she’ll have a ball building it. I wonder if giving her fuel for new theories will be enough for her to forgive me for the Beast Island thing.”

“Why did you send her there anyway?”

“Because she was going to stop us from opening the portal. Adora was going to win. Again. Because someone else handed her her victory. Again. Because I couldn’t stand one more time of working so hard to hold the prize in my hand and be told it meant nothing. Again. I doubt you would understand how that felt. I doubt anyone ever asked you to prove that you were worth keeping alive.”

Again Glimmer’s face went slack and her voice went soft. “No one should ever have to prove that.”

“Very few things that should happen in my life do.” Catra sighed. “How much longer is this truth spell gonna last? If we want to stay alive, I need to be able to lie to Horde Prime.”

“I can release it, but how will I be able to trust what you say to me?”

“You have my promise. I’ll tell whatever lies we need to get out of here, but when we’re alone, I will never lie to you. I don’t make promises lightly.”

“You will help me get out of here and get my mother back?”

“I’ll even do you one better. That stocky sorcerer guy that was with you in the portal world? That’s your father right? The one the reports say is dead?” Glimmer nodded, her brow furrowed. “Another thing I learned when I got swallowed. Making that world didn’t make anyone out of whole cloth. It only took people who were alive on the planet and moved them around. He’s somewhere you can find him too.”

Glimmer looked at her dumbstruck as she made a motion with her hands and Catra felt a pressure around her throat release.

“What’s my name?” Glimmer asked.

“Sparkles.” Catra took a deep breath. “Our odds aren’t good, but my odds never are. First thing we need is information. Ready to fool an interplanetary overlord?”

“I have to be.”


	2. A Planet-side Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catra may not be entirely without allies back on Etheria.

The Rebellion finally knew where Glimmer was, for all the good the answer of “orbiting the planet in the custody of Horde Prime” was. Most of the Rebellion considered the fact that Catra was with her to be--to put it diplomatically--an undesirable complication.

While Double Trouble’s experience told them Scorpia was not exactly a font of brilliant ideas by nature, they had noticed that she had been quieter than usual since the Rebellion had received the news and began planning their next moves. The shapeshifter was not proud of the feeling that led them to find her staring out over one of Bright Moon’s gardens, but they did it anyway.

“If you’re worrying about Catra, you shouldn’t be.”

“Not all of us can stop caring about someone like… like… flipping a switch!”

Double Trouble slid next to her side. “I may be cold-blooded, but I’m not that heartless.” There was, in fact, more warmth in their voice than Scorpia had ever heard before. “I’m not worried about Catra because, if anyone can work their way around big bad Horde Prime, it’s the person who looked at the complex rules of etiquette of the All-Princess Ball and the brutal simplicity of the gangs of the Crimson Waste and bent both to her will with equal style.”

A small smile tugged at one side of Scorpia’s mouth. “Both were awesome to watch.”

Double Trouble placed a hand on Scorpia’s nearest claw. “Our kitten is sharp as broken glass. Glimmer’s no slouch either. Assuming that one of them doesn’t sabotage the other for spite, Horde Prime is going to have his hands full. And I bet he won’t even realize it until it’s too late for him.”

Scorpia’s smile turned more hopeful. “Do you really think that?”

“Well, if that’s not the case,” Double Trouble said, their voice once more all amused detachment, “I’m far more worried about the odds of the rest of us surviving.” With that, they slinked away.

There. Maybe now that the emotions had been given voice, Double Trouble could stop feeling them. One of the first rules of espionage was to not get attached to your targets. Damn these girls for making that so difficult.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you ever have this one scene in your head with this one line you really want to show off but you don't want to write a full lead-up to it? A shiny no-prize to the person that guesses the line is this chapter that did that to me.  
> I should be back with Glimmer and Catra in a proper chapter within the week.


	3. Trade Agreements

Nothing had happened that was likely to give them new and unique nightmares the next time they slept. Glimmer and Catra had quickly learned that had to be chalked up as a success when it came to dealing with Prime. That didn’t mean they had come out of the meeting unscathed.

“Let me take a look at that,” Catra said once they were safely back in their--as far as Catra had been able to tell, unbugged--room.

“It’s fine,” Glimmer said as she worked her jaw and tried to rub away the red hand print that covered half her face. “It just stings a bit.”

“It is really obvious that you’ve spent your whole life at the top of the pecking order. You have no idea how to act around superiors; do you?”

“That’s not true. I’ve answered to my mom my whole life.”

“And what’s the worst your mother would ever do to you? Send you to bed without supper?”

Glimmer made a face. “Watching you do all that bowing and scraping just feels wrong. How do you stand it?”

Catra shrugged. “It was learn how to swallow my pride and do it or not live to see puberty.”

“That’s a lot of pride to swallow.” Glimmer smirked.

Catra mirrored the expression. “Probably why I started to choke on it after a while.”

“Well, I’m grateful that you have practice placating megalomaniacs.”

“You could learn some formal Horde protocols so I don’t have to do so much placating.”

Something caught Catra’s attention, her ears perking up as she sniffed the air. She put a finger to her lips before taking two swift strides towards the room’s air vent, ripping off the grill, and quickly reaching inside.

“Are you going to come out, or do I have to pull you out?”

Glimmer watched, confused, as a gray-skinned creature the size of a human infant with bat wings on its back crawled backwards out of the air shaft, Catra keeping a firm grip on its long tail until enough of it was out for her to transfer her grip to under its arms.

“Hey there you little snitch. Here to rat us out to Horde Prime?”

The creature opened its mouth and Prime’s voice came out, haughty, collected, and completely at odds with its tiny body. “It’s my wayward clone’s own failed cloning attempt that he turned into a pet. Destroy that disappointment.”

“Oh I see,” Catra said as she transferred him into a gentler hold. “Glimmer, this is Imp, the best little spy in the Fright Zone. He can’t talk. He can only repeat back what he hears. Exactly what he hears. He must have been caught in the same transport we were.”

Glimmer crouched down so her eyes were level with his. “Hi there. I didn’t think a Horde clone could be so cute. I wonder if all the clones naturally have wings. Why would Prime get rid of them?”

“I don’t want to try to think like Prime any more than I have to,” Catra said before returning her attention to Imp. “You’re safe here. Prime’s been magnanimous and promised us our privacy. You want to help us invade his so we can all get off this ship?”

Imp nodded vigorously before jumping out of Catra’s arms and perching on the room’s highest shelf.

“Finally something goes right,” Catra said. The moment passed when her satisfied smile turned into a grimace and she abruptly sat on her bed.

Glimmer knelt next to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Ugh, I can barely remember the last time this happened. It’s nothing.”

“I don’t want to hear any of that Horde ‘never show weakness’ nonsense. We’re in this together, and I need to know our full situation.”

“This feeling in my chest, like...” curled and uncurled her fingers like a pulse. “I used to put in extra training sessions when I felt like this. It’ll pass.” Glimmer watched Catra’s hand. It made her think of…

“Humor me and try something. Hold out your hand, palm up.” Catra complied. “Now take hold of that feeling in your chest and pull it towards your hand. Let it gather in your palm.”

Catra’s grimace turned to a look of surprise as something sparked an inch above her hand. The spark grew until it was an orange globe of light the size of a marble.

Glimmer sat back on her heels. “Congratulations. If we ever get out of here, there will be a place waiting for you in Mysticore.”

“And here I thought once we had completed our deal, I would be headed for a jail cell.”

“Bright Moon doesn’t have a jail.”

“Does Salineas?”

“The laws of Salineas may be more forgiving than you expect. More than a few royal consorts have been reformed pirates. There’s precedent for saving a city being reparation for sacking a city.” Glimmer’s attention flicked from Catra’s face to the ball of magical energy in her hand. “Is this really the first time you’ve done this? Because if it is, I’m pretty impressed that you’re keeping it up while holding a conversation.”

“Why? It isn’t that hard to split my attention.”

“Well, usually people doing this for the first time are still pretty little. That might have something to do with it. I’ve actually never heard of a sorceress who wasn’t raised in Mysticore.” Glimmer considered the thought. “Where did the Horde pick you up from?”

Catra shrugged. “Some mission Shadow Weaver was leading back when she still led missions. I don’t really remember anything about it or before that. All I would tell anyone was my name and that I had just turned five. I also had this with me.” Her claw clinked lightly against the metal of her headpiece. “I was close to making senior cadet before it actually fit me.”

“I've read novels where a mysterious past like that would be a sure sign that you’re a lost princess or something,” Glimmer said, trying to return to some of their earlier levity.

Catra rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid.”

“I don’t know. I always thought that headpiece looked awfully tiara-like for a Horde soldier.” She stood and nodded towards the light that still hovered over Catra’s hand. “You can let that go now. I think what you were feeling was magic buildup. Expend the energy and the feeling dies down. It’s bad for a sorceress's health to not use her magic.”

The orange light disappeared. “How am I suddenly a sorceress?”

“Good question,” Glimmer answered as she crossed the room to her own bunk. “Let’s sleep on it. After we wake up, I can start teaching you sorcery, and you can start teaching me how to placate megalomaniacs.” They were both relatively sure that it wasn’t actually very late, for all that day and night had lost meaning while they weren’t on a planet, but they had come to an unspoken agreement to feign sleep when they needed quiet to process their evolving situation.

“Deal.” Catra removed her headpiece. “For the record, this is a mask.” She replaced it lower on her face, the normally shadowy holes now highlighting her mismatched eyes.

“Still looks a like a tiara the way you wear it,” Glimmer teased before lying down facing the blank wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it for New Foundations. Keep an eye out for the next story in the Mending Bridges series. With foundations laid, it's time to start building the span and a way back home.


End file.
